Footwork: A Novel

Abstract

My thesis is a contemporary realistic novel using alternating perspectives. Footwork explores the modern day-to-day struggles and temptations that face monogamous relationships. How do we negotiate truth within society and expectations that others have of us? What are the deals we make with ourselves and each other in order to live within society? Footwork examines how truth and pain interact. Does truth always have to come forward at the cost of pain? There are three books that represent the contemporary cannon where Footwork could be situated. Infidelity by Stacey May Fowles encompasses alternate perspectives and deals with an affair as the central theme. Love and the Mess We’re In by Stephen Marche focuses on two perspectives of an affair and much of the book uses dialogue with the characters’ inner thoughts also written. Roddy Doyle’s The Snapper concentrates on a dysfunctional family, infidelity and is primarily dialogue. All three novels explore realistic portrayals of truth and infidelity. Footwork goes further by examining the intricacies of how people deal with deception and also forces the reader to have an emotional reaction. One of the ways this emotional reaction is achieved is by Footwork primarily being written in dialogue form. The dialogue encourages the reader to become emotionally invested in the characters’ struggles. The novel does not employ flashbacks, but instead focuses on the immediacy of the characters’ lives to create a story authentic to contemporary relationships. Footwork also uses alternating perspectives as a device to make the reader question which character he/she should be fighting for or against. All the characters have motives for why and how they deceive. The reader understands one character’s perspective only to be challenged by another character’s perspective. All three main characters at the end of Footwork find and/or speak their truth despite the pain that is inflicted.